


But The Closet's Cozy

by GeekyBaseballPlayer (2Partsof1GayHeart), TristanTheTrekkie (2Partsof1GayHeart)



Category: Original Work, Tristavius
Genre: Accidental Cuddling, Alternate Universe, Angst, Awkwardness, Best Friends, Bonding, Boys' Love, Canon Relationships, Canon Rewrite, Children, Comfort, Confessions, Crushes, Cuddling & Snuggling, Falling In Love, Family, Family Issues, Feelings, Feels, Freeform, Friendship, LGBTQ Themes, Love, M/M, Male Bonding, Male Slash, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), POV First Person, POV Male Character, Pining, Plot, Relationship(s), Secrets, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 22:42:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9208037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Partsof1GayHeart/pseuds/GeekyBaseballPlayer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Partsof1GayHeart/pseuds/TristanTheTrekkie
Summary: Between Octavius’s rough childhood and the bullying at home and school, he has trouble opening up and being himself. Then his whole life changed when he met his cousin by two marriages, Tristan. He was finally able to open up to someone and be himself. Everything seemed like bliss until he started feeling things that he believed the star baseball player and child of a traditional man shouldn’t feel. And could they be for his best friend?





	1. Octavius POV

**Author's Note:**

> This work is loosely based upon our life as Octavius and Tristan. Some events are put in or enhanced for the sake of our fic hence the Alternate Universe tag, but the characters are us through and through. I hope you enjoy and feel free to punch that kudos button like a savage that I know you are. Comments are highly appreciated.

     My family loves to drag me along to stupid little birthday parties and get togethers for all of the cousins. I’m twice the age of the oldest of the cousins. What am I, a twelve year old boy, supposed to do with little kids? I brought this up to my dad and my step mom. All they said was, “Octavius James Clark, you are coming and you can’t do anything about it. Your brother is going too.”

     “Yeah, because he’s their age. Come on I never have time to write between band and baseball.”

     My dad mumbled, “You need to quit band anyway. It’s getting in the way of baseball.” Rolling my eyes and making my way to the car, I try not to blow up. Yeah I love baseball, but that’s not what I want to do in life, I don’t even want to do any type of music in my life, but I still love it. Way more than baseball. But, of course, I’m the eldest son and my dad is living his life through me. I’m always working out. I’m always at the baseball field. And even if my dad let me quit, I’d feel like I couldn’t because the team depends on me. I’m the star of the team. I’m the best player they have, but I get stuck playing shortstop most of the time because my dad doesn’t want me to wear out my arm before high school. 

     After five minutes of waiting in the car, my step mom finally comes dragging in. She turns and scoffs at me. “Wipe that pissed off face away. There’s going to be another guy there around your age. He’s your cousin.”

     “How is he my cousin? I’ve never heard of him.”

     She rolls her eyes. “He’s Trevor’s new wife’s son.”

     I roll my eyes back at her. “Oh, so by two marriages.” 

     When we get to “my” grandparents’ house, my dad drops us off and leaves. Of course he gets to escape hell, but I can’t. Maybe this guy could keep me company during whatever this one is. They never tell me anything. As I walk in, I hear my uncle run into a room grabbing his daughter on the way. I walk to the living room. From the corner of my eye, I see him, standing in the hallway. He’s wearing a Joker shirt with black skinny jeans and converse to match. He catches me staring and shoots me a shy almost flirtatious smirk. When our eyes meet, I realize he has the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. And his skin was almost just as bright, if not brighter. His hair came to about his neck and was pulled back in a sloppy bun that I’ve seen only a couple guys pull off before. His sandy brown hair and bright skin brought out obvious freckles scattered across his upturned nose. His plump but nice sized lips were naturally almost as red as Joker’s mouth on his shirt. 

     I realize I haven’t broken eye contact which feels like forever. I have to play what seemed like the gayest moment in my life off, and I need to play it off now. I walk by, raise an eyebrow, and whisper, “Nice shirt, bruh.” Before I can determine whether or not that was cool or gay, he winks and walks off to the kitchen. Just like that. This is when I realize I’m never going to meet anyone like him. All that I know, though, is I’m straight and this weirdly attractive guy is not going to change that. 

     I try to make it seem like I’m not fazed by him in the slightest and just lean against a wall and fiddle my thumbs. That doesn’t last long because all the kids come running in, and I have to dodge them like the plague leaving me right back next to him. I clear my throat and try to start up a conversation. “Hey, so I never caught your name.”

     He smiles and sticks out his hand, “My name’s Tristan. Tristan Mathews.”

     I chuckle under my breath and shake his hand. “So are we talking like James Bond now?”

     He shakes his head with a small breathy laugh, “In that case it would have been “Mathews. Tristan Mathews.”

     I withdraw my hand from his and clutch my chest as if I’m hurt. “Ow, my weakness. Sarcasm.” 

     He wiggles his brows at me with a smirk, “It’s the only language I speak.”

     I get mesmerized by how he’s able to control his eyebrows like that. Especially with my giant eyebrows, I could never control them that much. Yet again I realize I sit there without saying anything for a little too long for comfort. I scratch the back of my head nervously and try to think of something. “Uh, so you’re a DC fan huh?”

     He looks down at his shirt, as if he’d forgotten what he was wearing, “Yeah but I love Marvel too, you know?” I go to respond, but my uncle yelling and then running back out the house with his daughter distract me. On the way out, he almost runs into my grandmother. She looks at him in fright but turns back to us almost as if it’s a normal thing for her son to be afraid to even be in the same room as his sister, my step mom. 

     She comes and pours herself a glass of tea. “Man, it is hot out there.” We both look at her awkwardly and stay silent which she takes as a sign to keep going. “Well I see you boys met each other. I’d hate to interrupt, but we need your help, Octavius, with your strong muscles, to get this big present out the van for Ashley.” I roll my eyes and follow after her. As I walk out the door to help, I take a glance over my shoulder and see that Tristan is standing in the doorway just watching. Without thinking and probably just to show off, I make sure to flex my muscles as I carry the present up the stairs. As I come up to him, he shyly asks, “You need a hand?”

     I grin and shake my head. “Nah, piece of cake.” I set the present down on the table and breathe a sigh of relief, but I try to keep it quiet so no one hears. 

     Tristan walks up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder, “You play sports or somethin’, kiddo?”

     I smile wryly and slide down into a chair. “Yup I sure do. Best baseball player you’ll ever meet. Played as long as I can remember.” I say this like it’s an achievement even though I know I’m suffering through it lately. 

     “That’s not saying much since you’re the only baseball player I’ve ever met.” He winks at me and smiles friendly. “I’ve never really been into sports myself. Played volleyball this year and it messed up my feet.” He kind of chuckled at himself, “It was my fault anyways. Should have never tried. I’m more of a gamer.” 

     “Good because my baseball players are not as cool as me. I’m even cool enough to teach you a little about baseball if you wanted.” I play shove him, but he is still standing up making it quite awkward. He’s short but even sitting on a high stool he’s a little taller than me.

     He gently shoves my shoulder and shrugs,”I’ll let you know if I’m ever interested. You like video games?” He takes the stool next to me, draping his arm over the back.

     I stretch and try to avoid eye contact. “ I mean yeah obviously. I’m a guy. All guys play video games, right?”

     He looks over at the window at a moth noisily flapping trying to get in, “Not all guys. Some of my friends think it’s a waste of time. They’re usually the ones spending all of their time on school though and honestly, how boring does that sound? I’m not a hardcore gamer though”. 

     My eyes follow the moth too and distractedly respond, “Yeah between baseball and….my other things I don’t really have much time for things like games. I wish I could do other things more often, but you know. I sold my soul to the game of baseball.” He awkwardly chuckles making me look back at him. He’s still watching the moth in the window giving me a chance to just look at him. From the way he introduced himself to the fact that he’s probably a big geek like me, he’s everything that I’ve ever wanted to be. Yes, I’m outgoing, but it’s not me. No one knows that I’m a geek. I had to hide that part of my life because all the bullying that went on earlier in my life. Not just at school but at home too. Now it’s just at home, but I can deal with that because even how broken we are, they are family. With Tristan, though, I can tell he is open about who he is, and he probably isn’t scared about it. If he does get bullied like I did about it, he probably just wipes it away and keeps going. Even though I look strong on the outside, all the things that have happened to me over the years have really wore me down, and I’m not as strong as I want to be. 

     The party gets started. Throughout the entire party, Tristan and I kept our space and didn’t really talk. We’d make eye contact and awkwardly shoot our eyes in the opposite direction, but then we’d look back to see if the other person is looking. We always are, and we’ll just shoot the other one a shy smile and go back to watching. At the end of the party, the kids start screaming getting excited about something, and everyone looks like they know what’s going on. You know, everyone but me. I just sit next to their old, chocolate lab, Mud, petting her thick coat making handfuls of chocolate fur get into the light creme carpet. Grandma always yells at us about it, but I always continue to pet her. She’s the sweetest thing in the world, so someone needs to give her the attention she deserves. 

     Tristan comes and squats down on the other side of Mud petting her but looking my way. “So we get the back room. They said maybe we can bond.” 

     I raise one of my bushy eyebrows which probably didn’t do much. “Back room? For what?” If I have to stay the night, I will probably go crazy. I don’t want to spend one more minute here than I have to even though Tristan seems cool. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to be here.”

     Tristan plops down and rolls his eyes. “It’s fine because I feel the same way. Even though I really don’t want to go home.” He breaks eye contact and looks down at Mud. His eyes look like they had seem some stuff which I understand. I understand completely. I follow him to the room closing the door behind us. He sets his bag down on the left side of the bed making me take the right. I glance up trying to make eye contact, but he is too focused on unpacking his bag. 

     That night we stay up just talking about everything and anything. I tell him about my real mother, Monique, abandoning me when I was seven on Good Friday. I tell him about how rough my childhood has been with the bullying at school and at home. I tell about how even though I am being forced to stay in baseball that baseball has changed my life. I even admit to him that I am just as geeky as he is. I just talk and talk and talk. I don’t get to often, and his reassuring smile he kept flashing me made everything just keep coming and coming. He talks too, of course, about his abusive mother and his father up and leaving too because his mother didn’t want to get married. But mostly it was me. He said hearing someone else’s horrible life made him feel better about his own. I felt bad for talking so much, but when I looked up ever so often, his eyes sparkled like as if he said go on. All I remember is vaguely hearing Tristan whisper, “Get under the blanket, big head.”

     I flutter my eyes open as light shines into an unfamiliar room. As I take in my surroundings, I realize there’s a slight heaviness on my chest. I glance down and see Tristan with his head rested on my chest and his arm draped across my stomach. Before I could even react, I hear an intake of breath meaning he is waking up, so I fake sleep resting my arm on his side where it was when I woke. If he woke up to me looking down at him, he’ll believe I liked it, and I was gay. I can’t have that. I’m not. I strain my ears waiting for a reaction. I don’t hear anything or feel him move, so I slowly breathe in and yawn as if I’m just waking up. I flutter my eyes open yet again to see him looking up at me. I jump, throwing myself off the bed one way and him off the other. I climb onto my knees and look across the bed to come eye level with Tristan doing the same thing. Once we catch our breathe, for some reason, we begin to laugh. Not like a slight chuckle. No, a laugh so deep and warm that I feel it all across my body. We both climb onto the bed gasping for air. We finally catch our breath, but then we make eye contact, and there goes the laughter. I can feel the rumble of his laugh vibrate the bed, and for the first time in my life, I feel at peace. At home. Something I’ve never really got to experience until now. Until Tristan.


	2. Octavius's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is loosely based upon our life as Octavius and Tristan. Some events are put in or enhanced for the sake of our fic hence the Alternate Universe tag, but the characters are us through and through. I hope you enjoy and feel free to punch that kudos button like a savage that I know you are. Comments are highly appreciated.

     First day of high school. It felt like yesterday that I was just a little kid. I just can’t believe I get to spend my first two years of my high school career with my favorite person in the world, Tristan. With him on my mind, my nerves settle ever so slightly knowing he is there for me. He showed me around some, but it was mostly just me taking it all in. Just standing in this school gives me so much hope in life that I don’t know what to do with. I try to listen to Tristan about what to do and who to watch out for, but the feeling of it all overwhelmed me.

     Once we parted ways, I headed to my first class. What did Tristan say about this teacher? I think he said that she doesn’t know how to teach very well. Or was that the other one? As I take my seat, I see the teacher huff in frustration throwing ‘about me’ papers together and handing them to a student to pass out.

     Right before the bell rings, my best friend friend from elementary school, Taylor, slips into the door closing it behind her. She sees me, and her face instantly lights up. She hurries and slides in the seat next to me claiming her spot for the rest of the year.

     Taylor and I became friends all those years ago because I had a crush on her. She walked into class looking like a goddess with her long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. For where I grew up, that was a rare occurrence. I instantly started liking her. We started talking and clicked easily like we’ve known each other our entire lives. People kept trying to come by and flirt with her touching in her hair, but she hated it. She refused to let anyone touch her hair. I asked her about it, and all she said was, “You can touch it if you want.” I felt so special. I was the only person able to touch her hair. For the rest of the day, I just bragged to everyone else about how soft it was making everyone else jealous of both her and me. At the end of her first day, I confided my feelings to my friend at the time, Kyle. He chuckled about it and proceeded to stand up and scream it across the classroom. I was so embarrassed that I did not want to go back to school, but when I did, Taylor and I were closer than we were before. The only problem was Kyle and Taylor were dating. I never stopped liking her, but she sure never liked me back. As I get older, though, I like her less and less.

     I have another class between this one and baseball third block, but it goes by so quickly I barely even remember half the stuff we did. Oh yeah ‘about me’ papers. I practically have to run and push people out the way to get across campus in time. As I walk into the room my schedule told me to go to, I notice that there are a lot of other boys. Despite me being only fourteen, I was quite larger than most of the boys. I had a couple inches on them, and I had a lot more muscle and stockiness to me than them. I got used to it, since most boys in baseball stay quite lean to run faster and few that get muscle to hit the ball farther. I, fortunately, can do both.

     I catch a glimpse of boy, Liam, who was in my second block, so I go stand next to him waiting for directions. He looks up from his phone and looks me up and down. “Dude, I didn’t get to tell you this, but you are huge. Like, crazy huge, dude.”

     Not knowing what to say, I just nod and chuckle quietly to myself. “Yeah, I get that a lot.” I try to just shrug it off like it was nothing because it was one of the things I got bullied for growing up, so this type of conversation makes me very uncomfortable.

     Liam doesn’t take the hint turning toward me as if he wants to have a full conversation. He eyes me up and down again looking astonished. “So, dude, like, how much do you lift?”

     I rub my chin feeling the stubble that I know that I need to shave. How much DO I bench? I remember last time I tried to experiment by myself the most I could lift was about 325 without a spot, but that was an easy amount. I glance over at him and see that he’s not a patient person. “I, uh, maybe at least 300 something. 325 without a spot. More with, maybe.”

     A couple of the guys walking around stop and look at me like I’m insane. One of the older ones that looks like he’s more of a football player than baseball looks the most fazed. “How old are you, kid?”

     I shove my hands in my front pockets trying to stop myself from them seeing me shake. “I’ll turn fifteen in December,” I say almost as if it was a question. I’ve never really worked out with other guys, so I don’t know if how much I bench is too much or too little.

     The guy nods in approval and, just like Liam, eyes me up and down. “You don’t play football, do you?” I shake my head no. “Well, we have a weight benching team. You NEED to join.” I promise him I’ll look into it. After all the attention is drawn off of me, the coach comes in and makes us, you guessed it, lift.

     Finally, the lunch bell rings, so I get to go see Tristan after all these boring hours. I walk into the cafeteria and instantly feel overwhelmed. I might be about six foot one, but with all these people, it’ll be impossible to find Tristan’s little self.

     From behind me, I hear a cat call, and I spin around trying to find out what idiot would ever cat call anyone. Of course, it’s MY idiot already carrying his lunch with him. I make my way towards him having to push and dodge people. Having to make my way towards him, I keep getting scared that I might lose him, since, compared to me, he is much leaner than me. He loves to point out that he is a lot like Loki, and I am Thor. His hair is long and slicked back, whereas mine is just wild and all over the place. My build is very much like Thor, and his is more of a runner’s build like Loki. I chuckle seeing that, like me, he hasn’t shaved either.

     “Hey, Vi! How’s high school going so far?” He wraps his arm around my back in a half hug but leaves it there while we walk to an empty table.

     I roll my eyes, flopping down at the table and angrily running my hands through my hair. “This is NOT what I expected high school to be like,” I lower my tone to a whisper, “and between me and you, man, I think the teachers hate me.” I think back onto my first and second block. My teachers kept getting attitude with me when I didn’t even do anything wrong. I’m not particularly used to mean teachers, since I was always top of my class, and teachers love me.

     “Nah, dude. I think you just have to get used to their different attitudes and sense of humour.” He scratches at his stubble making me subconsciously do it too. I realize that I hadn’t asked him about his day back yet. “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, man, how was your day?” I look over at him making eye contact because I love finding reasons to look at his beautiful blue eyes.

     “Same as always. It gets a little blase after two years. Just the same old introductory papers and ‘about me’ assignments. I’ll just use the same ones I made ninth grade.” I watch his eyes go off of me and over to my left. I try not to care, but my curiosity gets the best of me. I lean my head back and see a bunch of girls in too tight clothes. I try to remain calm even though for some reason I feel jealous, so I play it off.

     I shoot Tristan a smile before turning back to the hoes. I put on my best fuck boy impression calling them over. I turn back around before knowing how they react.

     There are three of them. One is a tall and slender blonde. She almost reminds me of Taylor, but Taylor looks more real than this girl. Plus, this girl has green eyes. The second one is also a blonde, but her hair is wavier. She was a lot shorter than the other blonde and was much thicker. She looks almost out of place than the rest and look like she might be cool if it wasn’t for the other two. The last one was a brunette and was also thick but not as thick as the short blonde. Like the tall blonde, she also looks fake.

     They make their way into chairs at the table. The brunette sits next to Tristan, but the blondes are both by me, one standing up and one sitting down. The tall one’s eyes baring into me make me tense, but I know Tristan. He might look at girls or even say they are pretty, but he never makes a move. Now that I am at the high school I want to help him. So if he wants to hit on some skanks, so be it. I will love him anyway.

     He shifts in his seat probably hiding his ‘excitement’ or something. “Uh how you ladies doin’ today?” He turns toward the blondes, so that gives me the chance to look at the brunette feeling him all up. I don’t like seeing someone so nasty touching MY best friend. As the moments pass by, I start to regret calling them over even with the thought of wanting to help him.

     The short blonde bounces back and forth between her feet playing with my curls not really minding because I like my hair played with. The tall one shoots her an evil glare but goes back to staring at me. “I’m great now,” she answers his question not taking her eyes off me for a second, “better now, actually.” I can’t take this tension any longer, so I flash Tristan a ‘get us out of here’ look.

     “Listen, ladies. We’d love to stick around but our friends are actually waiting for us. Sorry.” He grabs me by my bicep and drags me to the table and away from the psycho chicks. “Why’d you call them over? Did you see what they were wearing? Girls like that are only looking for one thing, and they’ll do anything to get it.” He spins me and looks me in the eyes, so I just smile knowing that it’ll calm him down.

     I have to try to keep calm because I was not the one who looked at them. I grab his shoulders and lower my voice to make sure I was the only thing he was listening to. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me, man. I saw how you were looking at them. I was going to go through that for you. They personally aren’t my type, but if I had to go through a couple minutes of whores for you, so be it.” I keep smiling, so I won’t look mad because I don’t want him mad at me.

     He pats my arms signalling for me to loosen my grip that I didn’t even know was that tight. “Ok but they’re not my type either. I just like to smile at people. Is that a problem?” Smile? SMILE? I smile at people all the time. I smile at my teachers to be polite. I don’t WINK at them though. If you wink at someone, that always means more than being friendly.

     I chuckle showing how frustrated I really am. “Don’t change the subject, Trish.” I look around trying to prove my point. I don’t see any girls, but I do see the boy that told me he was gay in my first block. I get Tristan’s attention and turn back to the gay boy. I nod in his direction smiling and winking at him. I feel bad because he looks thrown off and even trips on his own footing. I would help him if it wasn’t for me needing to prove my point. “Now, did that look friendly?”

     “Don’t call me Trish.” He turns back around and goes finds a table with what looks like his friends by their amused looks. He pulls out a chair for me showing that he can’t be that mad at me.

     One of the girls at the table, a mixed girl with snake bite piercings, snickers and looks between me and Tristan, “Lover’s quarrel?” His eyes get wide as he looks between her and a couple of the other girls giggling, “Uhm no-”

     I interrupt thinking it would lighten the mood some. “Yes! How have you girls dealt with this guy for so many years? I slept with him ONE night, and we already started little fights like that. Speaking of, every time we sleep together, he has a thing about trying to cuddle with me. Lately, I don’t stop him.” I bring up his cuddling habits knowing he gets all flustered about it which always brightens my day.

     “Listen, wh-when he says we sleep together! That’s literally it! We SLEEP not sexually or anything!” he turns and points at me, “And you know I get cold and you put off a lot of heat that I’m drawn to in my sleep. I can’t help it and you know it!” It is very true. Even though I am very cold natured, everyone always tells me I am always very warm.

     I throw my hands up in a mock surrender but then leans in towards the girls. “Well, there WAS that one time. But it’s whatever. You girls don’t want to hear about that.” I look away knowing it’ll get their attention.

     The girls all seem to lean in and the girl with snake bites, Kayla apparently, speaks up, “Actually, I think we’d be very interested in what you have to talk about.”

     I lean back and fix my jacket trying to come off as confident. “You should ask your buddy, Trish, to explain. He always does it better than I do.” I had to fake confidence because the memory had me feeling things that I shouldn’t. I can’t even talk about it in front of people, so I had to make him do it. I shoot him a smile and a wink, though, to make sure he remembers what I do.

     “First of all, stop calling me that. You know I hate it. Also, nothing has happened between us so I have no idea as to what you are referring to. We ‘cuddle’, if it can even be called that and we share a bed when we stay the night together. There is nothing to look into or seem so interested in. Nothing to talk about.”

     His words hit me right in the chest and the stomach. Does he not remember what happened between us? Or does he not know what I’m talking about because he didn’t get the same feeling? I strain out a chuckle trying to cover my pain, “He’s cute, ain’t he?”

     “Well, when you get done making things up with your overactive imaginations, I’ll be outside.” He gets up and walks out the glass double doors going out to the courtyard. I have to sit there for a moment to control all the feelings that was overwhelming me. Overactive imagination? He must really not know what I am talking about.

     After a couple seconds of sitting there calming down, I realize I have to go after him. I don’t even know what to say about it all without making him even more mad, so I just decide to lie. It also keeps me from confronting my feelings that I don’t fully understand. I’ll just tell him it was all just a joke for his friends to think I was cool. He can’t know that I was so vulnerable that night that I thought what we did was more than what it was. Plus, I’m not gay.


End file.
